The storm, politics could’ve divided us, but we came together in my part of WNC | Opinion
I don’t care how you cast your ballot in November. For the last three months all I’ve really wanted to know is whether you have a chainsaw or if you’re ready to haul off debris.
In September, when Helene ripped through Western North Carolina and Asheville, where I live, the wind did not discriminate between conservative or progressive houses — the falling trees battered us all. When the sudden rainfall overwhelmed our creeks and rivers, the water made no distinctions between urban and rural spaces — we were all swept up. Nature was not interested in colors on the electoral map.
In the immediate aftermath of the storm, neither were most of us.
As the holidays arrive and we connect with family, I’m reminded that the hurricane severed so many forms of connection: broken water lines, power lines, network lines and lines of interstates. In the loss of these links, especially those information systems that capture our attention and encourage our worst judgments, we discovered other forms of connection.
Where I live in Asheville we discovered a real neighborhood. It was primitive, to be sure, all of us hemmed in by fallen pines and rationing our water, and there was an apocalyptic feel as children skipped over snapped power lines. Far from signaling the end of society, the scene provided a reminder of how communal life begins. We checked in on each other, shared supplies and helped where we could.
To need and to be needed promotes a neighborliness that cuts across ideological difference. Politics without the polemics, where people come before abstract principles.
This is true in the larger region, too. A man I know who likes to wear a hat that says “I’m Voting For The Felon” spent days of backbreaking, heartbreaking labor finding bodies in the local waterways. He’s a good neighbor no matter which candidate he supported.
Meanwhile, I know a woman, fiercely devoted to social activism, who spent nearly every day of October teaching fifteen children, transforming her house into a big classroom for kids whose school had been shut down. She’s a good neighbor no matter how she voted.
Acquiring temporary access to the internet days after the storm, my wife and I discovered that we had received, within minutes of each other, emails from two neighbors inquiring after our safety. He is devoutly Jewish, she is devoutly Muslim. My wife and I, devoutly Christian, consider it one of our greatest blessings to have them as friends.
While government workers continue to provide welcomed aid, I’m in awe of the ingenuity of local resident who would not or could not wait for help.
We suffer into truth, the ancient Greeks said. Here in Western North Carolina, it’s three months later and we’ve still got more truth than we know what to do with. There will be time for accusations and recriminations, I’m sure. The state legislature’s recent relief bill is evidence enough that Helene didn’t wash away our acrimonious politics. But I hope we remember the truth of those first days and weeks after the storm when we all discovered our mutual dependence and responded with reciprocity and kindness.
Helene altered the region where I live forever — its history, its economy, even its topography — but the storm also revealed something that is unchanged: we are more unified than we think.
It’s just a few weeks after the national election, which swept over all of us like a different kind of storm. Some cheered its result; others call it a catastrophe. But we can find solidarity despite our differences. It starts by recognizing the people we live and work with as neighbors rather than stereotypes. They may vote differently, but they’ll lend you a generator or patch the hole in your roof.
Here in the mountains of North Carolina, there is still a mess to clean up. There are still trees down and flooded debris. You still hear the rough twang of chainsaws singing all day long. But here, at least, our society and culture — maybe even our politics — is less messy than we believe.